<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Part 40: Brian by oiuytrewq36</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27002449">Part 40: Brian</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/oiuytrewq36/pseuds/oiuytrewq36'>oiuytrewq36</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Let's Hear It for the Boy [14]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Queer as Folk (US)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:53:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,024</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27002449</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/oiuytrewq36/pseuds/oiuytrewq36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When I slide the loft door open, Justin is at the stove, cooking something spicy and fragrant - curry, I think - and I have to stop for a moment, feeling all of the years between us fold up like an accordion, from now back to the first few ill-advised weeks we spent living here together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brian Kinney/Justin Taylor (Queer as Folk)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Let's Hear It for the Boy [14]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928482</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Part 40: Brian</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When I slide the loft door open, Justin is at the stove, cooking something spicy and fragrant - curry, I think - and I have to stop for a moment, feeling all of the years between us fold up like an accordion, from now back to the first few ill-advised weeks we spent living here together.</p><p>Justin looks up and smiles at me. “How’d the meeting go?”</p><p>“Not bad,” I say, walking over to stand behind him and wrap him up in my arms, kissing the back of his neck. His head falls back on my shoulder and I take deep hungry breaths of him as he sighs, a small contented smile on his soft exquisite mouth.</p><p>Then he laughs, gently, and shakes me off. “Don’t distract me,” he says, smirking, and kisses my cheek. “This’ll burn if I don’t watch it.”</p><p>I press my lips to his hair one more time, then pull away and circle to the other side of the island. “So what’d you do today?”</p><p>He shrugs. “Not much. I had lunch with my mother, saw Molly and Max, and then I went over to Deb’s.”</p><p>“How’s she doing?”</p><p>“Good, seems like. She and Carl have taken in another new kid, this thirteen-year-old trans boy whose parents kicked him out.”</p><p>I look up. “Jesus.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Justin says. “But Noah - that’s the kid - is doing okay now, apparently. He came back from school while I was there and we talked a little.”</p><p>I grin. “Advice from an alumnus of the Novotny Home for Wayward Queers?”</p><p>He laughs. “Something like that, yeah.” He starts ladling food into bowls, and I get a bottle of wine out from the fridge. He’s set the table already - WASP training is like riding a bike; you can’t escape it even if you want to - and we sit down across from each other, and once again I’m taken back through years and years of him, of us.</p><p>Justin’s frowning faintly at me. “Penny for your thoughts?”</p><p>“I usually charge a lot more, but I think I can make an exception,” I say, and he rolls his eyes, smiling softly.</p><p>He gives me an expectant look, and I shrug. “Just- we’ve known each other a long time.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, that small smile back on his face. “We have.”</p><p>After dinner, I’m going over some notes for the meeting tomorrow, the last of this trip, when Justin comes over. He’s changed into his old jeans and a tight muscle tank, and he grins at me when I raise my eyebrows. “Feel like one more piece of déjà vu?”</p><p>Babylon is thrumming with light and vitality when we walk in. Even after years spent partying at the best clubs in New York, the world, even, there’s a pure, deep-etched grittiness here that I’ve never found anywhere else.</p><p>“Just like old times, huh?” Justin says, looking around. The crowd parts to let us through - we may be out-of-towners now, but if anything, that’s only given more weight to our legendary status - and I just smile and let him pull me into him, until we’re dancing nose-to-nose in the pulsing waves of bass.</p><p>The lights start to flash, and the music switches to something faster, and suddenly we’re swept up in a mass of jumping, laughing, shouting liberation, the feeling that told me for sure that this was where I belonged on my first night out on Liberty Avenue. Justin catches sight of one of his old friends from the diner, and he kisses me on the nose before darting over to say hello. I just lift my arms over my head, feeling decades younger than my real age (don’t fucking ask), feeding on the energy of everyone around me. </p><p>A few minutes later, I realize that I’ve lost sight of Justin. The room keeps getting fuller and louder, so when one of the go-go boys vacates his platform, I jump up onto it to try and get a better view. I may not be directly responsible for Babylon’s day-to-day operations anymore, but it’s still my club, so the bouncers don’t give me any shit about it.</p><p>I don’t see Justin approach, but I recognize his presence behind me the moment he climbs up.</p><p>“Surveying your kingdom?” he says, snaking both arms around my waist. </p><p>I twist back to look at him. “Our kingdom,” I tell him, and he smiles at me with clear piercing eyes that I can feel boring into my soul. He nuzzles against my jaw, warm, radiantly alive, so I turn around and kiss him, take his hands in mine as we start to move to the music. </p><p>“Do you know why I freaked out the way I did, the first time you proposed?” he says, seemingly out of nowhere. </p><p>I frown. “Because I didn’t fuck the stripper at my stag party?”</p><p>He rolls his eyes, but he’s smirking, a little. “That’s the symptom, not the cause.”</p><p>I wait.</p><p>“No matter what things between us have been,” he says finally, spinning us around twice before stopping again, “how good or bad, I have always loved you, because you’ve always refused to let me forget that this is what we are, where we come from.” He lets go of my hands, gestures at the pulsating masses of bodies below us. “That the world isn’t built for us, so it’s our own godforsaken <em>right</em> to remake it by ourselves. And it seemed like you were letting that piece of you slip away because you thought I wanted it gone.”</p><p>I close my eyes, let him pull me forward until our foreheads are touching. “Promise you won’t ever lose that, Brian.”</p><p>I only make promises to Justin that I know I can keep; that’s been my rule for longer than my old self would have willingly admitted. So I don’t hesitate for a second before I take him in my arms, whisper “I promise,” feeling him smiling, mouth inches from mine.</p><p>He kisses me then, sure, warm lips that I know better than maybe anything claiming me, making me his own, and I let everything but him and the music drop away.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I want to sincerely thank everyone who has read all the way to this point in what has become the longest single piece of writing I’ve ever completed. It’s been so much fun reading your comments while the story was in progress - I’m bad at remembering to respond sometimes, but I’ve read each and every one.</p><p>Now, on to the future: My initial plan when I first started publishing on here was to write the twelve parts that make up We Will Survive. Then, once the story-demons pervading my brain had been exorcised, I’d drop the mic and disappear back into the ether. </p><p>Obviously, that didn’t happen. The demons came back, and this time they brought friends. So I’m going to say that you’re all stuck with me for a while. Because I’m a control freak, I have the following plans mapped out for how I’m going to keep telling the story that won’t leave me alone:</p><p>1. The “deleted scenes” post will continue to be live, and I’ll update it whenever I feel like it.<br/>2. I’m considering writing up a few annotated versions of chapters that I’m particularly fond of, explaining the reasoning behind plot points and character shifts and shit like that. If there’s a chapter you’d like to see annotated, let me know in the comments!<br/>3. Finally (and most excitingly, at least to me) I’m writing a sequel - and it starts tomorrow! It’s not a series this time but a single story, set in the same universe as all the other stuff and focusing on the same characters. The setting is a little, uh, out there, so I’m going to ask you to bear with me if you have doubts - I promise I’ll take good care of the gang :) (have I ever failed you before?)</p><p>All of this has been a long, weirdly formal, and self-indulgent way of saying thank you to this odd little corner of the internet; I look forward to many happy weeks ahead with you all.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>